Complaints Incorporated…https://complaintsincorporated.com
Random (and occasionally humorous) musings on Technology, Politics, Economics and the Human ConditionSat, 29 Jul 2017 03:31:11 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/252ad850fef21ea26612683617ca8c08?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngComplaints Incorporated…https://complaintsincorporated.com
New Edition! GRID Autosport!https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/new-edition-grid-autosport/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/new-edition-grid-autosport/#respondThu, 20 Jul 2017 08:01:53 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6727Continue reading New Edition! GRID Autosport!]]>Well this might be considered evidence of insanity, but GRID has been acquired (despite being now ancient and not on sale!) expressly for the purpose of testing! (note to game devs: invest in a built-in benchmark loop – it leads to at least one sale!)

Complaints HQ is currently investigating the veracity of claims that PCI-E 8/8 vs 16/16 has somehow started to matter in high end SLI configs running at 4k. Knowing the architecture in play here very well (from top to bottom), I am extremely skeptical. That this is becoming the gospel according to “YouTube” and “Reddit” does not impress. Particularly since the “proof” seems limited to a handful of anecdotal tests and one video, all focused specifically on BF 1 and Witcher 3 (neither of which have in game benchmarks. hmmm…)

One other game, however, that does seem to come up as demonstrating some difference (beyond margin of error) is GRID. So without further ado, here it is! (Note: vid includes first few frames of “proof” of the max fps achieved with recording off)

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/new-edition-grid-autosport/feed/0mlambert890Rise of the Tomb Raider Benching Reduxhttps://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benching-redux/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benching-redux/#respondThu, 20 Jul 2017 06:23:27 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6712Continue reading Rise of the Tomb Raider Benching Redux]]>A short while ago the 1080Ti SLI config was unleashed on Rise of the Tomb Raider to decent, but underwhelming results. Pascal SLI and DX12 have had a bit of a rocky history so far, but driver updates and game patches have been coming with reasonable frequency so it seemed prudent to give this another shot. Well needless to say, there has been a massive improvement. The last round of testing had resulted in a best of ~70fps or so. This time around, with no changes other than software, the 1080Tis were able to push up past 110fps. That’s a huge gain of >50%. Recording overhead kills a few frames, so a second view was included as a “proof shot” of the run with recording off. Enjoy the updated vids!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/07/20/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benching-redux/feed/0mlambert890Project Live Stream!https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/06/13/project-live-stream/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/06/13/project-live-stream/#respondTue, 13 Jun 2017 06:18:09 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6698Continue reading Project Live Stream!]]>I like to play a lot of indie games. While of course hit or miss, by and large the bang for the buck on these is amazing. Plus it’s cool to support small studios who are able to take risks and bring you experiences that would never pass the business plan review stage at a AAA shop. When it comes to Live streaming, though, this is a bit of an under served niche. Live streaming has become a legitimate phenomenon and an actual new estate of entertainment, which is awesome, but most of the content centers on big releases for obvious reasons. I figured at the nexus of these two realities might lie a good science project and an even better way to waste money! Thus, “Project Live Stream” was born and I learned ultimately that this is not such an easy space!

Let’s kick things off with an architecture view (skip to the finish product basically):

Ok so there is a lot going on there. To start with, I decided on a few rules up front for no particularly great reason:

2 PC capture – mainly because I have two PCs and also because my main gaming PC is a quad core running 4k native whereas the server is a 10 core Xeon so I (mistakenly) thought this would be ideal (more on that later)

USB capture – USB 3 is 4.8Gb/s and modern Intel chipsets, with DMI 3, get very close to that. The server has no other USB devices. Internal capture cards are generally PCI-E 2.0 1x, which means 500MB/s or about the same perf as the USB device, but with the added complexity of being an internal card and not being portable

No webcam – because this is about the game, I’m not aiming to be a “YouTube star” and, frankly, no one should need to be subjected to seeing yours truly just to get pointers on “Gone Home”

No high end mic – room is tight as it is, I hate the sound of my voice so plan to speak only incredibly rarely and when absolutely necessary (like if there is some pending emergency only I am aware of and it becomes my civic duty to notify the 2 people viewing my stream). I have a Razer Kraken headset that is perfectly fine, so that works as a recording device

So with the rules of engagement in place, I set out to pick up some components. For a refresher, this is the PC setup currently in play at Complaints HQ:

Server is about 20 feet away from the PC in the living room entertainment center

For the USB capture device, I found myself torn between two tough contenders: the Razer Ripsaw (AVerMedia LGX OEM), and the Elgato HD60S. These parts are pretty close, and the “forum drone reflex” is to repeat Elgato like a mantra. Looking closer though, most reviews give the nod to the Ripsaw and, ironically, many forum drones also give the nod to the AverMedia LGX (being either unaware the Ripsaw is that same part or taking exception to Razer or Razer software). The main issue pro reviewers had with the Ripsaw was that it was ridiculously expensive. Fast forward a year though and the two parts are the same price (about $180). Given I had an Elgato in the past, like the design of the Ripsaw, and it did seem to take the uncompressed quality edge in reviews, I went with the Razer.

If these sections had subheadings, the subheading for this one would be “Setup – A Tale of Woe”. I learned a bunch of things up front that challenges my initial assumptions and are worth noting:

The Razer in a 2 PC setup connects to the gaming PC via HDMI (so you need a spare HDMI out) and to the capture PC via USB 3.0. The 1080Ti only has a single HDMI out and that was in use by the Occulus Rift. The second 1080Ti ports can’t be used because of SLI. I ended up solving this by spending $25 on an HDMI to DP converter with 4k support (HDMI 2.0/DP 1.2). This worked out well. Video via the converter was no problem and the Occulus software switches Rift audio to default when the headset is active, and switches back when it’s off

SLI is an issue – here in 2017 you somehow still cant run SLI with a cloned desktop setup. If you do extended desktop, you will be unable to play and stream fullscreen games and actually wont be able to stream anything unless you drag it onto the invisible monitor surface. The only solution is to switch the monitor config to clone when streaming and set the resolution to 1080p for both surfaces. This is annoying, but does allow for full stream streaming to the 2nd PC. I suspect this will never be resolved due to the way SLI manages the display (it has always been a limitation)

Audio for this setup is a pain – Windows only supports a single default audio device and another default audio device for communications. The TL;DR here is that a software audio mixer is needed. I found that VoiceMeeter Banana is absolutely phenomenal. It virtualizes the audio I/O via a system driver (install requires reboot) allows you to map multiple inputs to multiple outputs. In my case I set it up as follows:

Output A1: Realtek Speakers. WDM resulted in reverb distortion, so I had to set the driver to MME. Also, in the speaker configuration of the VoiceMeeter Aux Input device, 5.1 had to be selected to get 4.1 working. Just select 5.1, then deselect the center speaker under the “optional speakers” settings. The cool part is once this is setup, surround sound will work on the desktop, but the mixer is smart enough to only send 2 channels via HDMI and USB

Output A2: Razer Ripsaw via Nvidia HDMI

Output A3: Razer Kraken USB headset

Input 1: Razer Kraken mic

In addition to the above settings, all channels should be toggled on for the virtual inputs so that the virtual wire will utilize all physical channels for output and will also enable “listen” for the physical input. I left all channels in normal mode which worked fine (none set to mix down or composite)

It was a bit of a complicated journey, but this setup results in everything just about working with only a few minor inconveniences. Having to switch monitor config and resolution before every stream is definitely a pain but the audio mixer does a good job and is unobtrusive and it is definitely cool when speakers, headset and the stream are all active along with voice capture.

With the source side setup, it was time to move on to the capture side of the equation. After trying a number of different solutions, I decided to stick with OBS Studio. It’s open source, free obviously, and extremely powerful. It also has great support for both software encoding (H.264 via the x264 CODEC) and hardware (Nvidia NVENC) for both recording and streaming. The software defaulted to NVENC and the Titan X, but with 10 2.2Ghz cores I decided H.264 was the better choice.

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/06/13/project-live-stream/feed/0mlambert890Live Streaming Setup - Page 1A Questionable Evolution…https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/18/a-questionable-evolution/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/18/a-questionable-evolution/#respondTue, 18 Apr 2017 06:01:55 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6586Continue reading A Questionable Evolution…]]>A common complaint (not completely without merit, mind you) on car blogs these days, most often leveled at “Ze Germans” (Audi, BMW, Benz) is that prices have hockey sticked disproportionate to inflation, particularly at the “low end”. The discussions that follow usually rat hole into debates over relative currency values, globalization, consumerism, et al but I think the actual root cause here is something simpler. The trend I’ve observed isn’t even really unique to the big 3 Germans, but I’ll stick with those since they work really well as examples.

Typically these discussions start off comparing pricing of the C class, 3 series and A4 from “back in the day” (let’s call it 2002), to today. So let’s do that:

Manufacturer

Model

2002 base MSRP (2017 inflation adjusted)

Dimensions

Audi

A4 1.8LT I4, 170HP, FWD

24,900 (33,717)

179″L x 70″W x 56″H

BMW

325i, 2.5L I6, 184HP, RWD

27,100 (36,696)

176″L x 69″W x 56″H

Mercedes Benz

C230, 2.3L, V6, 190HP, RWD

24,950 (33,784)

171″L x 68″W x 55″H

OK, now bear with me. Before we continue down the usual path, let’s take an alternate view:

Manufacturer

Model

2002 base MSRP

Dimensions

Audi

A6 3.0L V6, 220HP, FWD

35,400 (47,935)

192″L x 76″W x 57″H

BMW

525i, 2.5L I6, 184HP, RWD

35,950 (48,679)

188″L x 71″W x 57″H

Mercedes Benz

E320, 3.2L, V6, 221HP, RWD

49,250 (66,689)

189″L x 71″W x 57″H

Now, those are the “midsize” pseudo luxury sedans of yesteryear. With those in mind, let’s have a look at what’s happened to the “entry level” 15 years on:

Manufacturer

Model

2017 base MSRP

Dimensions

Audi

A4 2.0LT I4, 190HP, FWD

34,900

186″L x 73″W x 56″H

BMW

320i, 2.0LT I4, 180HP, RWD

33,450

182″L x 71″W x 56″H

Mercedes Benz

C300, 2.0L, V4, 241HP, RWD

39,500

185″L x 71″W x 57″H

Note the adjusted for inflation 2002 pricing reflects an average inflationary gain of about 2% per year or roughly 50% total in the 15 year period. Let’s shift gears (no pun) and have a look at a different kind of chart:

My oh my. What have we there? Yep. In 2002, median income was 55,871. Adjusted for inflation, you’d need to be making 75,655 in 2017 to enjoy a similar lifestyle. Guess what? As of 2017, median US income is… 55,575.

No. That’s not a typo. Median income has gone down. Now let’s go back to the car data. Notice a few things:

“Entry level” has moved up a notch – not reflected here is the fact that C class, 3 series and A4 are no longer “entry level”. Those honors now belong to CLA class, 2 series and A3

These things keep getting bigger. This is by demand, by the way. If you notice, the current C/3/A4 aren’t quite as massive as the old E/5/A6, but they’re getting awefully close

HP, performance and tech are way up

Build quality, is arguably down, even though safety is in fact up as is economy. This is a direct reflection of the fact that while regulations are strict (at least for now), people don’t keep cars anymore and instead apply the cell phone model and flip them via lease every 2-3 years. So you build a gadget filled, high performing, surprisingly economical, extremely safe transit pod, but you cut corners on fit and finish since it isn’t expected to stick around too long

But the main point here is… These models have paced inflation very well

So what is the conclusion? The conclusion is that the C class, 3 series and A4 are actually extremely impressive values. You’re now half way to what the higher tier models used to give you in terms of comfort, with dramatically improved technology, fuel economy and performance, but in exchange for a hit on overall fit and finish. That said, the pricing is in line with what it should be.

What is not in line, is actual incomes. So the cost of these cars have not outpaced inflation, but rather inflation has massively outpaced salary growth. That is the real issue. So how are the car manufacturers able to sell at essentially the same price point to people who get poorer every year? Well, that’s where the leasing model comes in, even as far as subsidizing the depreciation charge in some cases. So sure, no one ever owns anything. But at this point, most people don’t care. As long as the payment still “fits” in the budget. So basically the car manufacturers found a pretty clever way to sell essentially the same car, evolved a bit, at roughly the same price, to people who make less money, by using a financial instrument that can still (just) fit in their budget. Of course the challenge is there is nowhere to go from here really. And, in my opinion, that is the reason for introducing the down market 2/CLA/A3, sized like the old original platforms which is a size class many still love. Folks who can afford (just) to lease a 3/C/A4 today can probably buy one of those, and people slipping out of even the 3/C/A4 lease space today can at least lease one of those.

82.01 198.46 20.16 677.72 Overall

Pretty insane spread. The minimum to max ratio is absolutely ridiculous. That said, the actual experience is extremely smooth and I suspect an FCAT view would show very minimal frames at min:

Next up, GTA V. Again using the handy in game benchmark. Settings are pushed to the limit including first level of every type of AA enabled, all sliders to the right, etc. GTA V bench doesnt give a final frame count for some strange reason, but you can see that framerate lives about 60fps (often well above) throughout. Absolute minimum seems to be about 57fps or so:

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/11/the-new-build-vi-bioshock-infinite-and-gta-v/feed/0mlambert890The New Build V: Metro 2033 Recordings!https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-2/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-2/#respondTue, 11 Apr 2017 03:31:51 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6538Continue reading The New Build V: Metro 2033 Recordings!]]>Decided to do a recorded run through of the two in game Metro 2033 benchmarks. The Redux subway tunnel battle and the Last Light marketplace walk through. Both were done with max settings. And by max, we’re talking actual max. As bad as Metro can get:

First up, Redux:

TL;DR – 50fps average. Looks like we lost about 8% from Advanced PhysX. How about Last Light?

Slightly better at 54fps. Same as we saw in the previous entry with PhysX off. Unfortunately we also see the same drop of about 8%. Of course Advanced PhysX in Metro has always been known to be broken on some level and doesn’t actually do anything in the game, so this is largely synthetic, but interesting nonetheless.

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-2/feed/0mlambert890metrobenchsettingmaxThe New Build IV: Rise of the Tomb Raiderhttps://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider/#respondMon, 10 Apr 2017 07:52:57 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6527Continue reading The New Build IV: Rise of the Tomb Raider]]>Next up, some compelling results from Rise of the Tomb Raider. Settings were set to Custom, maxed out, AA set to SSAA2x. Runs were done with vsync on and off, and in both DX12 and DX11. Interestingly, there as no measurable difference between DirectX versions and in both cases there was SLI scaling of a modest 20% (not horrible for a DX12 game that has been notorious for not scaling well in mGPU)

First up, vsync on. Holds a steady 60fps average. Can’t really ask for more than that!

Next up, vsync off. 73fps average or so. A not horrible, but not wonderful, gain of 20%. Bang for the buck not so great, but still solid gains for this level of GPU workout!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/04/10/the-new-build-iv-rise-of-the-tomb-raider/feed/0mlambert890The New Build III: Gaming Bencheshttps://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/21/the-new-build-iii-gaming-benches/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/21/the-new-build-iii-gaming-benches/#respondTue, 21 Mar 2017 05:23:11 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6494Continue reading The New Build III: Gaming Benches]]>Let’s kick off the gaming tests with the oldie but a goody trainwreck that is Metro 2033. In this case Last Light and Redux. Settings are PhysX off as always since it has remained bugged since inception and everything else maxed (note – SSAA is on):

The same benchmark code and settings are used for both games and only the scenes played back differ since they share an engine. First up is the old original Metro 2033 bench run through:

As an average, we end up with 54fps and a minimum of 19fps. Minimum is a bit low, and still not hitting the magic 60fps (maybe Volta SLI?), but amazing that we’re finally within striking distance with SSAA on.

OK, so how about the Last Light scene?

Argh! So close, yet so far. A good 10% better than the train tunnel, but still a few frames shy of 60 at a 58fps average. Minimums are up to a health 28fps though, which is amazing by Metro standards. It should be noted that actual game play is perfectly smooth with no hitching or dropouts. Metro will always be a love/hate proposition. I love that they included this benchmark and that it has stayed relevant since way back in the GTX480 days, but I hate the fact that the game engine itself clearly has inherent optimization issues that were never sorted. Still, it’s fantastic for comparing relative performance across generations and there we can see the huge progress that has been made in the (admittedly long) 7 years from the 480 era to today. Still, it would be nice if $4000 in gear could push this damn game to 60 at 4k max!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/21/the-new-build-iii-gaming-benches/feed/0mlambert890metrosettingsmetroreduxmetroreduxllThe New Build II: Benchmarkshttps://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/19/the-new-build-ii-benchmarks/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/19/the-new-build-ii-benchmarks/#respondSun, 19 Mar 2017 06:13:59 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6481Continue reading The New Build II: Benchmarks]]>With the build complete, it was time for some testing. With 1080Ti SLI and NVMe, some strong results should be expected. Let’s see how that pans out! First up, the disk subsystem. We’re dealing with two different NVMe devices here. An older OCZ Toshiba RD400 512GB device, and a newer Samsung EVO 960 1TB. Both devices were set in the BIOS to PCIe x4. The Toshiba is M.2-0, which for some reason becomes disk 1, and the Samsung is M.2-1, which becomes disk 0. The OS was installed on the Toshiba, and the Samsung is being reserved for games. First up, the OS disk:

There we see the power of NVMe. It’s abundantly clear that the SATA bus is a crippling bottleneck for SSD and unleashed on the PCI-E x4 connection, even the modest 512GB Toshiba part sales past 2.5GB/s sequential read and even manages to hit nearly 200MB per second in the torturous 4K random write test. Impressive results indeed. So how did the Samsung do?

Wow! Just insane that the Samsung 1TB part (a newer and better SSD) was able to sail past 3GB/s sequential and nearly hit 2GB/s on sequential writes. It would be nice to have the faster performance for the boot device, but honestly given the option I’d rather that the games volume be the better of the two. Once the OS is booted, there isn’t much happening with that volume that even a modest SATA SSD can’t handle.

So the disk subsystem is insane and definitely the strongest results seen yet in the Complaints HQ lab. What about those GPUs? After all, that’s what this whole build was really about! Let’s start off with some synthetics, Firemark Ultra and Unigine Heaven 4.0, to close this entry out, and then get into some gaming tests next entry:

OK, not bad. 12046 with no overclock done on anything other than EVGA Precision set to 120% for the GPU power target. Not huge numbers, but a solid 65% improvement over a single Titan X with the 6700HQ.

How about Heaven 4.0? At 4k Ultra with Extreme Tessellation?

Now that’s impressive! Blasting well past 70fps at 4k with everything maxed in Heaven is roughly a 50% improvement over 1080SLI for about the same at launch price.

One thing to note, for those who still fixate on CPU “bottlenecks”, and claim that Pascal is enough for 4k… Even with 1080Ti in SLI the CPU isn’t a bottleneck for 4k max detail. Well, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for some games!

Ah yep. In the trailer for T2 Transpotting Ewan McGregor, waxing philosophic, says “you’re an addict. So be addicted. Just be addicted to something else!” Well I think its debateable if HEDT PC building is actually a better addiction than narcotics, but here we are!

I have to say that I really did enjoy the Alienware 15 + Titan X in AGA build and highly recommend it, but after my recent move, with a bit of creativity, hydraulic arm assist, patient spouse, and willingness to make a room look ridiculous, I was able to successfully deploy a full desktop monitor:

With a desktop monitor and keyboard tray in play, suddenly the AW AGA combo seemed less compelling. Particularly since these days I don’t travel and a tower case doesn’t really take up more room on the floor than the AGA. And then of course there is the fact that even a Titan X Pascal isnt a 4k@60@max card consistently enough.

And so a new build it is! Deciding whether to wait for x299 was very tough. In the end, I decided that Z270 and the 7700K are delivering the perf I need for the long haul which is maxed 4k at a steady 60 when paired with high end SLI. Down the road the x299 is doubtless going to give better core density, but I also have my Xeon build for real work and the game machine rarely does more than game/stream. Plus, the Z270 has every feature update in recent history (USB 3.1 C, M.2 PCIe x4, etc) and also now has respectable PCIe lanes with the 7700k. Who knows what may happen in a year, but for now the Z270 seemed a solid choice vs going back to X99. Anyway, let ‘s get a closer look at the parts list!

SSD (OS): OCZ RD400 500GB NVMe. Open box and a good deal so had to grab.

SSD (bulk): Samsung 960 EVO 1TB NVMe. At $100 more than SATA3 and the promise of a build with no disk cables, couldnt resist.

GPU: oooooh yeah! EVGA GTX 1080Ti FE SLI

Case: last but not least, the Corsair 570X all glass showcase!

The Case

I have to say I absolutely love the idea of an “aquarium case”, but was cautious about the weight and potential fragility of all of that tempered glass. Well I am happy to report that the 570x is really a thing of beauty. Ay 25 lbs its nor a lightweight, but not so bad compared to steel towers with similar dimensions. The carton was as plain brown as possible, with no inner box, but the case itself is tucked away in a very nice cloth sack:

Ooooo… fancy!

The case itself is very close to tooless. 4 nicely finished and solid steel thumb screws hold each side panel to the frame, and both need to be removed to set the system up. And yes, both front and back are glass, which is bold, but Corsair did a good job providing cable routing tunnels and chambers, so the final effect can be a very nearly cable free experience (especially with a pure M.2 build!)

The first job is to mount the PSU under the power supply shroud. The shroud is fixed and non removable, so it’s more of a power supply cave actually. The best bet here is to cable up rhe modular connectors first, rhen fit the PSU into its housing. There is a decent bit of shroud space left to hide slack even with the EVGA 1000.

Much like the case, the 1000 P2 comes in a nice cloth sack and also includes an even nicer bag for holding the spare cables. In my case I only used VGA1-4 for the 1080Ti connectors, 1 SATA for the 570x fan controller, and the motherboard and EATX CPU connectors. I keep my original boxes and so stashed everything left over there, but the cloth sack is still a nice touch:

With the PSU mounted, next stops were motherboard, H100i cooler, RAM and CPU.

The Maximus Gene IX Code, despite the really idiotic name, has some pretty nice packaging. At least the $300 Z270 boards class it up a bit X99 style:

The board itself is a black PCB in keeping with cureent l337 trends and is covered in plastic shrouds, some of which are LED features. Its starting to remind me of modern cars a bit, where no one even remebers what an actual engine looks like since all you see when you open the hood is plastic dress up, but the aesthetics definitely work. Especially in a glass case!

Of course when you need to do real work, the shrouds have to come off. So for a mechanic that means an extra 10 minutes of wrestling with plastic before the tuneup and for PC mastah race that means 2 minutes removing a shroud to get to the M.2 slots. One screw and some plastic fasteners holds it in place:

One M.2 is designed to be horizontally mounted to the board and screwed down with two metal couplers, the other is designed to attach vertically, sticking up perpendicular to the board like a little tower, fitted into a metal carrier with a dubious plastic fastener that seems to do nothing but apparently is supposed to hold the M.2 in place.

One potential risk with the 570x was clearance for a top mounted radiator according to forum discussions. Luckily, the H100i fits perfectly well with Patriot Vengeance DIMMs. As for the H100i itself, it’s the usual thing. This is well trod ground at this point and closed loop coolers are more about iterative refinement.

Mounting the cooler is a matter of releasing two thumb screws and removing the bracket, then mounting the radiator itself to it. Screw channels are provided rather than holes, so the rad can be freely positioned if clearance does become an issue:

The finished product is pretty clean. The piping on the H100i has good slack and free movement and mounting the water block is easy. The DIMMs cleared with plenty of room and the bracket mount provides another hide away spot for the fan and pump power cables:

The rear shot here may not be Instagram quality, but it’s pretty nice nonetheless. Gives an idea of the cable mounting options. Noteworthy is that the CPU mounting bracket remains accessible with the board mounted. Not shown is the steel cable tunnel shroud which encloses the bundled vertical run completely, and secures via two thumb screws, to finish off the look:

Next up, the real star. You know theres one thing to be said about the massive premium of the Titan line. For all of that money you do get a package that feels special. The Titan X experience starts with the box itself. The 1080Ti? Not so much. The FE might as well be a 1050Ti for the way its packed and presented. Still, in the end its the perf that matters right? All the usual bits are there; display port to DVI and VGA converters and SATA power to EATX 8 pin:

SLI in all its awesome, if diminished by DX12 and spotty support lately, beauty:

With everything physically in place it was time to close her up and fire her up. Mmmm… LEDs. Next step, benchmarks!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/03/17/zomg-wtf-new-build/feed/0wp-image-1505715566jpg.jpgmlambert890Notes from the Road, A Personal Automotive History – Issue 25: “The German Evo”https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/01/08/notes-from-the-road-a-personal-automotive-history-issue-25-the-german-evo/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2017/01/08/notes-from-the-road-a-personal-automotive-history-issue-25-the-german-evo/#respondSun, 08 Jan 2017 07:30:04 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6302Continue reading Notes from the Road, A Personal Automotive History – Issue 25: “The German Evo”]]>I’ve sung this song before, I know. After several previous “really final this time” entries, the last entry was supposed to actually be the real deal. Well unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. The 997 Turbo is quite likely the finest car I’ve owned and honestly, likely the finest car I will ever own. It’s hard to describe just how good it really is. The steering feel and precision is flawless. The power delivery is epic; particularly with the Tiptronic. Starting in 2nd gear is a drag (literally), but if you drive aggressively enough, frequently enough, it will drop that habit and, worst case, forcing it to 1st is a thumb flick away. Off the line in first there is basically no turbo lag. The Variable Turbo Geometry (VTG) system really does its job and, at full boost, it’s a monster. Of the cars I’ve owned, only the ’14 GTR was quicker but even that beast simply could not match the combination of perfect driving position, size, feedback and involvement that the Turbo delivers. It’s on another level in every way.

Unfortunately, though, sports cars can be tough in reality. The back seats aren’t completely vestigial, but they’re not exactly usable either and 2 door coupes can be more of a pain, more of the time, than one might imagine. The kid keeps growing (funny how they do that) and commuting around the Bay Area is pretty brutal. Having a kid climbing in and out of the back of a Turbo is rough and it isn’t the best commuter car. It’s loud and has a good bit of road noise, and the tech is very back dated. Even a new 991 isn’t great in that department, but the 997 lags even its contemporaries; lacking simple practical tech like basic Bluetooth. As a result, taking a call from the road isn’t very realistic without some significant modernization, and even that wouldn’t help the tire and road noise.

The other issue is that a near 10 year old super car is an interesting proposition as a daily driver. Porsche flies under the radar pretty well, which is great, but it’s still a car that grabs attention and that you don’t particularly love leaving at the “park and ride”, corporate parking lots, or a minivan cluttered elementary school.

There was also an added complexity in that, for me, owning a used car is always bitter sweet. I love dodging the depreciation hit, but over time I tend to notice thousands of little things. How did this nick in the leather get there? Where did that scuff come from? What the heck was owner X doing that caused that?! These little worries add up for me and erode my peace of mind; particularly when I’m spending a lot of time in the car and relying on it daily. While a used car is a great value, and you can do a ton of well informed due diligence, you never really know.

All of that said, the 997 Turbo is one of the smartest used car moves you can make. You can pretty much sell it for what you paid for it as long as you maintain it well and don’t pile too many miles on, and that’s a rare thing. In addition, it’s quite possibly the pinnacle of the classic Porsche 911 experience. Some might argue that the new cars are a better over all package, but I think everyone will agree they are a different direction that has been polarizing for long time fans.

So what does all of this mean? What kind of lunatic gets rid of a 997 Turbo, albeit a used one, and what do they exchange it for? Well my criteria had become a bit tight. I feel even the current 3 series BMW has gotten too big, so anything too muchbigger was way out of the question. That said, I did want 4 seats at least usable by medium sized adults and, once and for all, 4 doors. Of course whatever it was, it was going to have to be quick and, because my wife and I now share cars in emergencies, an automatic. Most importantly, it had to be something I would consider “special”. My attention span is short enough as it is, so if the car doesn’t have some unique aspect to it, I know it’s going to be gone in 60 seconds. Last thing is, it had to be new. I wanted no history, no stories, and no DNA floating around the car that wasn’t mine. I also wanted new car tech, new car smell, and a warranty. And I wanted to stop setting money on fire, which meant I needed something that would last long enough to ease the agony of the massive initial depreciation hit. That pretty much doubles down the importance of “special”. Total budget for all of this? $60k.

These criteria create a pretty short list. I checked out what amounts to “the usual suspects” given my priorities. I evaluated the new WRX, the Audi S3, the Golf R, the Ford Focus RS and the CLA45 AMG. The WRX I liked, but after a quick test drive, it was out. I liked it, but my wife hated it and honestly, I’ve always been an Evo guy (not to mention, been there, done that). I knew that a WRX, to me, would never quite scratch the itch. Moving on, I checked out the Focus RS. Brilliant little car that, to my eye, actually looks pretty good (full disclosure, I hate hatchbacks). Unfortunately, Ford dealers feel it’s a $50k car (see “obscene dealer markup”) and I do not. That brought me to VW.

The Audi S3 and the Golf R are basically the same car, except the Golf is better. I hate to say it, but that’s just true. The Audi S3 is a more expensive, not as good, Golf R. That was a big problem for me. Now to be fair, the Golf R was phenomenal. It’s everything that is great about the GTi (which is everything), plus a lot more. Dynamically it was brilliant. Easily on par with the M235i, and it felt just about as quick. The steering actually had better feel than the BMW. The interior looked better than both the BMW or the Audi to me, and the car is incredibly practical. Unfortunately it does not look good to my eye (again, hate hatchbacks), and my wife had a viscerally bad reaction to it. Also, $40k is a lot for a VW, even though this is a brilliant car and worth every penny. So what about the S3? The S3’s biggest problem, in my opinion, is the Golf R. I couldn’t help but compare it and it couldn’t help but come up short in every way. Also, knowing that I’m paying for an Audi skin on a VW is a huge issue psychologically for me. So while it is a handsome little sedan (although every Audi sedan looks exactly the same just in different sizes, they’re all pretty handsome), I just couldn’t do it. Especially since I had already owned the RS5 and found it less than able to hold my attention long term.

So at this point the end of the story is pretty clear (assuming it wasn’t already from the title). I ended up with a 2017 CLA45 AMG. A hugely polarizing car in that it is based on the universally despised CLA class and had a pretty rough start well it was released in 2014. It has since been greatly improved, but never re-reviewed and, as a result, has a pretty bad public image. The test drive, however, was pretty convincing. I had tested one in 2015, and the 2016 changes are very noticeable. The 2017 appearance changes were less direly needed, but are noticeable as well.

How does it stack up? Well first the bad. To me, every car today below $100k looks horrible inside and the CLA is no exception. Crappy hard plastics and cheap materials everywhere. I would say the CLA has a nicer design than the M235i and the S3, and features some better materials like more generous usage of MB-Tex (Benz fake leather which is actually not bad) and Dinamica (Benz fake suede, also not bad), red deviated stitching and red seat belts, but overall it’s a mixed bag that still has way more hard plastic than I would like to see, and is not as nice as a C63. On the other hand, all of it looks like it will wear quite well over time and definitely looks durable, and there are no natural materials anywhere which can be good for the conscience. Also, full disclosure, my build has none of the interior “upgrades”, but I personally don’t think they make a huge difference. I saw one with the “red cut leather” and I’ve seen the Recaros, and the overall effect is the same. I actually prefer the MB-Tex/Dinamica combo seats.

It is also a car that really needs driving modes. My sample is pretty fully loaded up and, as a result, carried a sobering $61k sticker price, but that means it included the locking front diff, raised top speed limiter, adaptive damper suspension and race mode. I find that switching from comfort, to sport to sport+ to race results in a very noticeable difference. In comfort the combination of turbo lag and lazy clutch engagement is too noticeable for spirited driving. So the “good” is that Sport+, on the other hand, is pretty brilliant. It feels like a different car with very aggressive clutch engagement, aggressive downshifts, rev matching, increased throttle sensitivity and minimal lag. In Sport+ the CLA45 feels like a proper hooligan and, despite the FWD bias, starts to feel a lot like the Evo MR.

In fact, I think it is fair to say, that the CLA45 is a kind of German Evo MR with a better dual clutch transmission, a worse AWD system, a much better (but still somewhat crappy) interior, and a much nicer exterior (although looks are subjective of course). Even though the CLA is FWD biased, you don’t really feel it even in spirited driving, so on the street it ends up feeling quite similar to the Evo MR. The standard AMG exhaust sounds fantastic and, again, reminds me of my modded Evo.

Tech wise, it has literally everything plus the kitchen sync. The Benz Command system has come a long long way and I far prefer it to the Audi system I had in the RS5 or the iDrive in the M235i. It has Android and Apple auto, nav, XM/Sirius, Logic7 audio, an SD slot with movie and file viewing, Bluetooth for audio and calls, a WiFi hotspot, apps, onboard system monitoring views (sort of GTR light), on and on. Too much crap really. You could spend 40 hours just playing with crap on the, admittedly somewhat awkward looking, but ergonomically fantastic, tablet display. On the driving side it has smart braking that can prevent you from rear ending someone in theory, blind spot detection, and a backup camera. The only bits missing in my build is the front sensors that come along with the adaptive cruise control (very light autonomy). Can’t be retrofitted either (I checked).

So what is the final verdict on the CLA45 AMG? Well I do think it gets a bad rap on forums. It feels very quick on the street thanks to a well tuned and ridiculously high output 4 that delivers 350 torques at 2400 RPM as long as you keep it in Sport+, and it has a dual clutch that, here in 2017, can hang with the best of them (not sure how bad the much maligned 2014 tune was). The EPS steering feel is phenomenal, in my opinion, miles better than Audi and a bit better than the M235i as well. I hate EPS, but the CLA45 makes me forget it has EPS which no car has been able to do outside the truly exceptional new Boxster. The CLA probably a shit platform overall, which is a shame since you should be able to get a nice luxury car that is also small from these damn companies (Audi, BMW, Benz all very guilty), but you don’t notice it quite as badly in the 45. I can tell it will be a rattle box, which drives me mad, but to be fair, the 997 Turbo was as well. The interior is shitty overall, but certainly a bit less shitty than its competitors (including the M2) which says more about the dismal state of what $60k buys you these days than anything else really. I consider it too big, being even bigger than the ridiculous F80 340i, but it is smaller than an A4 or C class Benz and it does manage to have 4 doors and 4 seats. I very much like the (admittedly ludicrous as a concept) “4 door coupe” design in practice visually, so that helps a lot in making a sedan seem “special” aesthetically for me.

Overall I would put it on par with the M235i in many ways, behind it in a few others, and ahead of it in some important ones. The M235i is dynamically better, without a doubt, being one of the best BMWs since the E46 M3, but the CL45 AMG is clearly quicker on the street and feels more raucous. I also think the modes make a much bigger difference in the CLA and I prefer all of the suspension settings vs the BMW EDC. I also prefer the CLA steering feel and find it more direct. Aesthetically the M235i looks better, being a proper coupe, but the CLA45 is more usable given its 4 doors and has a bit more space as well. It also looks about as good as a sedan can. Interiors are close, again with both being lackluster, but the CLA45 is definitely better thanks to higher quality materials used more extensively, and a more flashy design (even given the ///Performance catalog mods I had done to my 235).

At the end of the day, the CLA45 is tough to beat if you’re looking for a fast, small(ish) 4 door with a measure of personality for $60k. It’s without a doubt a bit of an odd coda to my incredible journey, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but maybe that’s a good thing. It’s going to have to last a while now if for no other reason than financial, and its going to see some use, so as an “all arounder”, one could certainly do worse!

This (shockingly expensive, but more on that later) collection of hardware represents state of the art(ish) across the 3 major platforms today. So with this amount of alternate reality insanity in one place, what else is there to do but… Have fun playing games? No! Stage a platform VR shootout? Yes! Without further ado, let’s head for the main event! Mobile vs Platform vs PC… Fight!

Setup

Oculus Rift

After unpacking all of the bits (headset, remote, sensor (which looks like a table top microphone actually), XBox One controller with wireless adapter, and assorted cabling), it’s a pretty simple process to physically connect. The headset connects to HDMI out on the GPU and also takes up a USB port, the sensor takes up a USB port of its own and should be placed on a level surface about 3 – 5 feet from where you will sit (or stand) to play, and the XBox controller wireless adapter takes up a final USB port. With physical connectivity out of the way, it’s just a matter of downloading the Oculus software and running the initial install, config and calibration. Oculus has its own app store integrated with the control panel app (which slickly autostarts when the headset is worn), but SteamVR now recognizes and supports the Oculus as well. My setup is the Alienware M15X R3 with a Pascal Titan X in the AGA (Alienware Graphics Amp, external GPU chassis). The AGA isn’t Thunderbolt, but instead is an external PCIE 3.0 x4 (32Gb/s) connection. Performance is amazing in everything with that setup and VR is no exception. There isn’t much the Titan X can’t handle. GeForce experience recognizes the AGA and Titan X combo correctly, but incorrectly reports that the system isn’t VR ready. This doesn’t matter since everything works great, but is one of those annoying PC things (like having to update drivers and firmware on like 20 devices constantly in addition to the games themselves and the base OS)

The setup was actually quite easy by PC standards and calibration was a breeze. The Rift sensor has an amazing return on effort in that it is extremely easy to place and use, but the accuracy is excellent. No motion controllers yet (coming in Dec), so control is by way of the XBox One pad which is the same as it’s always been in this setup.

PlayStation VR

Like the Oculus, there is a lot to unpack here (literally). At first glance, it’s clear there are even more bits in the console pack than the PC. This comes actually as a bit of a shock. The PS VR needs its own power supply, as well as the obligatory USB and HDMI hookups. The headset has a dual proprietary data/power+ standard HDMI cable with an inline remote (2.5mm headphone jack for the included “3D audio” ear buds, volume, power, focus controls) that lead to a breakout box. The breakout box is pretty sizeable, but can sit on top of the PS4 (occupying most of the left side) and is an HDMI passthrough.

The HDMI connection heading from the PS4 to the TV shifts over to the breakout box TV out, and the HDMI “to PS4” port on the breakout box, shockingly, goes to the PS4. The next bit is the micro-USB connection which goes from the back of the breakout box to the front of the PS4. The final connection is the power brick which also connects to the back of the breakout box. All in all, it’s pretty straightforward and intuitive to hook up, but definitely something of a birds nest and more cumbersome than the PC. Moving on to the sensor, things don’t really improve much. The sensor is the old PS4 camera which, while easy enough to setup, is less flexible in terms of placement strategy than the Rift sensor. The last bit is the movement controllers which are literally the old PS3 mov hand helds. These are probably the weakest link. Setup is as easy as adding a new device and calibrating them with the camera, but again, this makes the whole thing more placement constrained. Not as bad as the Vive mind you, but much less flexible than the Rift. Once everything is physically connected, and the PS4 is powered on, the headset gets powered on and immediately needs an update. When it comes to system, game, and peripheral updates consoles are definitely nearly caught up with the PC. The overall software installation between the two was pretty much a wash in terms of time required for both the install itself and calibration. The calibration of the headset and controllers with the PS4 camera is less confidence inspiring than the Rift sensor, but it remains to be seen if this will impact gaming (hint – it does).

GearVR

Right from the moment of unboxing, it’s clear that this rig is a much simpler proposition. The baby Oculus is not only physically smaller, but it is a much less complicated package with no sensors to be found, and no wires or cabling. Maybe even too simple in that it doesn’t even provide an in headset (like it’s big brother) or even in box (like the PS VR) audio solution. That said, every phone has a 2.5mm headphone jack and everyone has headphones, so it isn’t a huge issue. Given that the headset has no built in screen, and there is no HDMI in this install process. Instead, the phone itself becomes the screen. This is a bit odd, but it works. Since the phone is the screen, the software for VR needs to be installed before fitting it into the headset. This is a typical Android app install and is quick. The lens cover that protects the visor snaps off by pulling the clamp to the right, and then the phone slots in, docking with the micro-USB port (adapters for USB-C are included) and then snapping in, held in place by sliding the clamp back. Once the phone is in place, the visor can be worn and the software will auto launch. Calibration is extremely easy since the entire thing is self contained and movement is tracked by the phones gyroscopic sensor. Of the 3 units, the installation here is definitely the easiest by far, despite the somewhat strange move of having to dock the phone into it. The fact that there is no real calibration only adds to this.

WINNER: I’m going to call this one a victory for the GearVR. Remember, we’re just talking setup and OOBE here. The Rift takes second and, in a major upset, pushes the PS4 VR to last! Next up… Gaming!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/10/16/vr-title-fight-console-v-mobile-v-pc-mastah-race-part-i-the-setup/feed/0mlambert890vr-battleriftpsvrbreakoutboxgearvrFrom 980Ti to 1080 to Titan X REAL Quick!https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/08/29/from-980ti-to-1080-to-titan-x-real-quick/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/08/29/from-980ti-to-1080-to-titan-x-real-quick/#respondMon, 29 Aug 2016 05:23:38 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6239Continue reading From 980Ti to 1080 to Titan X REAL Quick!]]>Sure, this qualifies as certifiable insanity, but we suffer for the art dammit! Here she is…

The Titan X (working fine in the AGA by the way, and 6700HQ busiest core is still only hovering around 80% while GPUstillhits 99% at 4k) gained about 10fps in Crysis 3 over the (overclocked) 1080 which had given about a 10 or so fps boost vs the 980Ti (factory overclocked) at 4k/Very High/No AA.

Interesting take away is that 980Ti->1080->Titan X is delivering tangible gains, but much less so if you compare OC to stock clocks. Have to keep the OC going. Good news is Pascal overclocks well. I had pushed the 1080 to +225/+500 base clock/RAM. I pushed Titan X to +200/+500. I had the 980Ti SC+ at +125/+400.

At 4k/Very High/NoAA on Welcome to the Jungle the results were:

980Ti +125/+400 : 25-40fps

1080 +225/+500 : 35-52fps

Titan +200/+500 : 45-63fps

CPU Utilization and a Side Note about World of Warcraft

At peak framerates the busiest CPU core was 78% and the GPU hit 99% in all scenarios. Interesting contrast to World of Warcraft, Legion where (also fully maxed at 4k with no AA) I am seeing a big range of 35 – 100fps depending on location with CPU pushing up very occasionally to 90% and GPU rarely going above 80%. Oddly the three data points don’t coincide as you’d expect. So there are times the busiest core is only at about 67% with the GPU around 50% (Titan X more like 35%) and framerates are still somehow 38fps. So a good thing to keep in mind when attempting to chase “bottlenecks” is that code optimization remains one variable you can’t control and in many cases it has the biggest impact.

In terms of the Titan X and the (admittedly odd) pairing with a 6700HQ running stock clocks, at 4k and max details there is still some life left in the CPU. Crysis is a solid test for this, in my opinion (particularly compared to woeful examples like WoW or Metro), where you see 99% GPU Util with CPU peaking at 80%. Unfortunately the nature of game code continues to make it hard to break the work into threads, so tons of actual computing power is being left on the table at 80%. Real CPU util across all cores is more like 30%, but that’s the nature of the beast.

Conclusion

Is Titan X worth it for an AGA equipped, 6700HQ based, Alienware with a 4k panel? Definitely. We’re still not seeing sustained minimums of 60fps with full fidelity and in the majority of cases the CPU never maxes out. That said, I will say that there isn’t that much left on the table with the 6700HQ given the realities of multi-threading in gaming workloads. The next bump up from the Pascal Titan X would probably be about it for the 6700HQ in most cases. Of course that might mean that Pascal+1 plus 6700HQ could actually do sustainable 60fps full fidelity 4k, which would be a beautiful thing because, shockingly, we’re still not there yet!

]]>https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/08/29/from-980ti-to-1080-to-titan-x-real-quick/feed/0mlambert890The Lab Gets a Mid-Year Refresh!https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/06/24/the-lab-gets-a-mid-year-refresh/
https://complaintsincorporated.com/2016/06/24/the-lab-gets-a-mid-year-refresh/#respondSat, 25 Jun 2016 02:47:46 +0000http://complaintsincorporated.com/?p=6100Continue reading The Lab Gets a Mid-Year Refresh!]]>Well I have to admit that the AMD experiment was short lived even by ComplaintsHQ standards! To be clear, the FX-8370 is still a great processor and the AM3+ socket is kept pretty modern with 990X chipset. There are some definite pros and cons with this platform. On the plus side:

Full virtualization feature set – this is a big one for home labs. AMD gives you the full AMD-V set of virtualization extensions across their line including IOMMU (AMD-Vi) for direct mapping of IO to guests in a hypervisor environment.

Strong single core performance – 4Ghz (4.2Ghz turbo) is a solid clock rate for the money. Yes AMD suffers a pretty bad IPC deficit against Intel these days (probably as bad as 50% against Skylake), but for most commodity workloads where most modern CPUs are generally user input or disk IO constrined, or in a virtualization test bed where host CPU time is efficiently parceled by the hypervisor, or even in high resolution gaming where there is far more burden on the GPU, the Vishera IPC is decent enough that 4Ghz never feels sluggish.

Bang for the buck – given the above two points, the low price point of the AMD procs starts to look pretty good and this is compounded by the fact that they are still on DDR3 and the motherboards are dirt cheap. This is especially true for a home lab.

Of course it’s not all great:

RAM limited – this is really a chipset issue, but the 990X boards are going to realistically cap out at 32GB. This makes sense as this is a consumer platform, but it can get tight in home lab scenarios.

Performance ceiling – As good as the 8370 is, at some point you do hit a wall if the workloads get intense. To be clear, what is meant by intense here is a dozen active VMs, or 1080P game streaming, or heavy real time HD encoding (Plex).

Architecture limits – this may or may not ever matter. Again, very workload dependent. There is lots of misunderstanding (some deliberate I think) and even more ignorance when it comes to AMDs Clustered Multi-Threading. Let’s keep it simple. The 8 core 8370 has 8 integer cores, but it has 4 L3 caches and 4 Floating Point Units. That’s it. So a pair of integer cores share a cache and an FPU. This will only matter if you have a given workload that is highly CPU cache efficient or is intensely floating point.

So what happened at ComplaintsHQ to send the AMD packing? Nothing dramatic honestly. The FX8370 is a fairly power hungry 125W and was paired with a very power hungry 390x, so this was part of it, but power aside, it was certainly getting the job done just fine in the following use cases:

NVIDIA GameStream and Steam Streaming – 1080P, max settings, AA off. Managed 30-40fps over 802.11AC in The Evil Within, Crysis 3, Archeage and Bioshock Infinite. This is with the AMD390x

Encoding – I use a ReadyNAS as a streaming and storage server and love it, but while decently powerful for a NAS, it is too light to use do high bit rate encoding on. Stuff like this I will let run on the server when I need to do it

Here is how the synthetics looked for the FX8370/R9 390x combo in PassMark:

Summarizing the graphs:

PassMark Rating: 3228

CPU Mark: 9497

2D Graphics Mark: 503

3D Graphics Mark: 5989

Memory Mark: 1264

Disk Mark: 4222

So what bumped the scrappy, but a bit long in the tooth, AMD out? Well sometimes the market leaders are where they are for a reason:

CPU – Xeon E5-2630 V4: Yes, this is overkill. 10 cores, 20 threads, 2.2Ghz (3.1Ghz turbo), 85W, Broadwell-EP. What can you say? This thing is a monster. But at $675 it’s as much as the full motherboard/CPU/RAM combo on the AMD side. Is it worth it? Let’s see…

RAM – Samsung D739E DDR4-2133 16GB ECC Server Memory x 8. At $100 a stick this was an $800 hit, but for a full 128GB of registered ECC DDR4 that’s actually not too bad. Still, “bang for the buck” is now long gone!

Motherboard – Supermicro X10SRi-F single 2011-V3 socket, Intel C612 Express chipset. The upside to the server boards is they are RAM dense (8 DIMM slots in an ATX package!) and have all sorts of cool features like IPMI, I/OAT and ECC support. The downside is they feature some weirdness like 2011 narrow ILM (more on that later), no onboard audio (no great loss if you’re main out is HDMI) and artifacts of a lost age like jumpers (GASP!). Still a pretty cool piece of kit even if the BIOS does feel ancient.

GPU – drumroll… Zotac GTX1070. Astute readers will note that the GTX1080 was less than an overwhelming acquisition. The 1070, on the other hand, is a different proposition entirely. At below $500 for the Founders Edition, it delivers near GTX980Ti performance at much lower power draw. It’s very solid in GPGPU as well and makes a fantastic shared GPU for VDI. Leaving the (solidly performing) R9 390x in place was tempting, but the GTX1070 just destroys it (and most everything else) in terms of graphics horsepower:watt. Given that a big part of the motivation for this upgrade was KW/h reduction, it was a perfect fit.

Some parts porn!

So all up this was a $2400 upgrade to a system that was already pushing $2700! This brings the grand total to a whopping $5100. That’s well beyond “on the cheap” and solidly into “batshit crazy for a home lab” territory. To be fair, the AMD CPU, motherboard and GPU sold for a respectable $425 and the RAM should fetch another $50. So pull $475 off the total and we’re at $4625. Still a ton, but this is the final build:

But the most important question is how does performance look? Let’s see:

Comparing the two:

AMD

Intel

Delta

PassMark Rating

3228

4510

140%

CPU Mark

9497

14024

148%

2D Graphics Mark

503

616

122%

3D Graphics Mark

5989

10063

168%

Memory Mark

1264

2330

184%

DiskMark

4222

4465

106%

This is a really solid victory for the Intel platform (given the cost differential, it better be!) with an average across tests of a 145% performance gain. Given that the upgrade weighed in at $1900, that’s $42 / percentage point. Personally I feel this is too much to make this upgrade worth it from a pure capital expense standpoint. Of course it also represents the tipping point for certain workloads. As an example, game streaming 1080p, max settings (again no AA to keep the testing consistent) is now a rock solid 60fps. Also, the TDP differences shouldn’t be ignored:

FX-8370

E5-2630

R9-390X

GTX1070

AMD

Intel

Delta

W Idle

21

15

94

60

115

75

65%

W Load

81

75

258

161

339

236

70%

The Intel platform is coming in at only 65% of the power draw of the AMD setup at idle and 70% at peak load (in this case representing Prime95 blend for CPU and Crysis 3 at 4k for GPU)

Converting those numbers to money, if the AMD setup were left idle 24 x 7 x 365 it would cost $146/year at 14.5 cents/KWh to run. The Intel setup would weigh in at $95/year. This $51/year difference is pretty insignificant, but if you run the server at idle full time, it does slowly chip away at the upgrade cost. And of course every time it runs at load, the savings increase since the ratio stays close and the Intel system will stay at peak for a shorter time since it is significantly more performant.

In the end this is a very cool upgrade that can certainly be classified as a pure luxury. A core dense Xeon in a true server board with real server RAM and components in a small form factor at home is something like a Rolex watch. Yes it’s a premium. It is better than lesser components. No you don’t really need it. But you know you want it!

After playing around a bit with EVGA Precision X, this is where we landed:

Power Target: 120%

GPU Clock Offset: +225Mhz

Mem Clock Offset: +500Mhz

This is a decent overclock. For reference, with stock clocks the 1080 managed to average about 1750Mhz GPU clock and 5005Mhz Memory clock during extended benchmarking and gaming sessions with temps sitting around 75C. With the +225Mhz offset, the results were impressive. A sustained low of 2025Mhz GPU clock, rock solid 5508Mhz Memory clock and temps never passing 80C. That’s a nice 15% GPU, 10% memory OC with the reference cooler, complete stability, great temps and no noise. This OC percentage matches what you get out of the factory OC on the 980Ti SC+, so the comparison is a good one. So how did it impact performance? Let’s take a look at Heaven first (note, OC results of 1 hour of continuous benchmarking showing in upper left):

28.7fps and a score of 722 at 4k Ultra on Heaven 4 is very good. For comparison, 980Ti scores generally range around 23fps and a score of 580. Doing the math we’re getting closer to a 25% boost in perf now. So synthetics are nice, but did the OC fare as well in gaming? Let’s see…

Wow! 46.6 is a nice result. Once again we’re at a solid 25% gain. So it looks like with similar OC’s, the 1080 represents a consistent gain of 25% (vs 15% OC vs stock clocks) over the 980Ti at lower power consumption and noise. That’s actually a very good, if expensive, gain. One more for the road…

Once again we see a 25% gain. Also, perfect stability through an hour of Heaven, Fire Strike and Metro 2033 runs.

So the 1080 is a mixed bag without a doubt vs a nice factory over clocked 980Ti. You need to overclock the 1080 itself to see gains that feel worth it, and it is undoubtedly bad “bang for the buck” (not unexpected jumping from last gens super premium card to this gens upper mid range), but the 108o absolutely does beat the 980Ti across the board under every circumstance and does it with lower heat, power and noise. That’s a solid win.